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Multigrain Pancakes

My pantry is in an embarrassing state of disrepair right now. I would guess I have 15-20 random bags of seeds, flours, and oats that I’m not really sure what to do with.

So anytime I make something baked I’m always trying to use up some of these random things.

The ironic thing about it is that the more I use them, the more I like them, so I just buy more when they run out. So the crazy pantry ends up growing instead of shrinking…

Champagne problems right?

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Anyway, these pancakes are about as healthy as I’ll do on pancakes. They still have butter and syrup. It’s my view that if you aren’t willing to put butter in your pancakes, then you might as well not make them (unless you have some sort of dietary reason as to why you can’t have butter).

But these guys have a lot of good stuff in them also like chia seeds, flax seeds, and whole wheat flour. I was really happy with how they turned out.

Directions

1) Mix dry ingredients in a large bowl. Mix wet ingredients (except butter) in a small bowl.

2) Stir wet stuff into dry stuff. Mix well and let sit for 15 minutes. If the batter is too thick, don’t be afraid to add a bit more milk.

3) Right before making pancakes, stir in melted butter.

4) Cook pancakes over medium heat. Add a tiny amount of butter to the pan before starting pancakes. They should need to cook for about 2-3 minutes on the first side and then just a minute on side two.

5) Flip the pancakes when there are bubbles forming on the top and the sides are starting to dry up and become firm.

6) Serve pancakes right away with butter, syrup, and berry topping.

Making the Batter

There’s some pretty standard ingredients that almost any pancake recipe should have. You obviously need flour and some sort of leavening ingredient (baking powder/soda). Most will also have some dairy stuff for the liquids (buttermilk, milk, eggs, butter, etc). I think you could substitute these with soy products, but I’ve never really tried that.

The only substitutions that I made from the standard pancake ingredients is subbing some of the flour with whole wheat flour and also using brown sugar instead of normal sugar.

The normal stuff. Kind of.

What I did do though was add in some other delicious grains and seeds.

These guys give the pancakes a fantastic texture and an almost nutty flavor. I really liked them.

The fun stuff.

Pancake batter is pretty straightforward to mix. I’ve never really understood the advantage of boxed pancake mix. It maybe saves you 60 seconds and is way more expensive than just buying the individual ingredients.

Plus I just don’t think the resulting pancakes are as good!

To make the batter, just mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl and the wet ingredients (except melted butter) in a smaller bowl.

Then just stir your wet ingredients into your dry ingredients.

Wet into dry always.

Since this batter has oats in it, I recommend letting it sit for about 15 minutes before making the pancakes. This will give the batter a chance to absorb some of the liquids.

After that point, you might need to add a few extra tablespoons of milk if your batter is too thick. It should almost be the consistency of a thick gravy.

Right before you start making your pancakes, stir in your melted butter.

Gotta have it.

Cooking the Pancakes

I think one thing that people mess up sometimes when they make pancakes is cranking the heat up to super-hot on their pan. While this works great for steaks, it’s not a good idea for pancakes. Nobody likes medium rare pancakes.

So start your heat on medium which will give your pancake time to cook through as it browns on the outside. Use a nonstick griddle or skillet to cook your pancakes in and add just a tiny amount of butter to the pan before ladling in the batter. You want just enough butter to lightly coat the pan.

People always want to know about how you can tell when to flip the pancake. The two things I look for are bubbles forming on the top and the edges turning solid and slightly dry.

This guy is about ready to go.

Almost there…

Flip with confidence!

Perfect!

If you cook your first pancake and it’s too thick, add a bit more milk to the batter to thin it out. If it’s really then, then your batter is too runny, so stir in a bit more flour.

A Quick Berry Topping

I usually just like butter and syrup on my pancakes, but I had some frozen fruit (my freezer is maybe in more disarray than my pantry) so I thought I’d make a quick berry topping.

I just added a few cups of fruit with some water and sugar to a pot. Bring this to a simmer and cook down the berries until they are thick.

Quick and easy.

Even with the fruit topping, I still couldn’t resist topping the cakes with some butter and syrup.

Hopefully you can see all the goodies that are in these guys.

These are actually kind of healthy.

I thought these turned out fantastic. They are very filling but still light and fluffy as a pancake should be.

Because of all the add-ins your getting a lot of your daily fiber requirements just with a pancake. That’s pretty hard to beat!

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5 comments on “Multigrain Pancakes”

Spent the day in the North Georgia mountains buying apples, cider, apple fritters, apple dumplings and fried apple pies. Tomorrow morning I'll be making 3 grain pancakes with cooked mashed apples in them and attempt to make my own apple syrup. Thanks for your multigrain pancake recipe. I agree with you about butter when one is making pancakes.

I relate to your pantry and freezer woes! We've implemented a system where we HAVE to use up at least one thing in the pantry every week… Our cereal stock went from 5 boxes (I know, who needs 5 boxes of cereal?) to 1 in just 2 weeks! My recent post Whole Wheat Scallion Pancakes

DUDE!!!! I just made these today and they were f-ing amazing. They were super moist!! Seriously, they were better than my normal, less-healthy (tho also very good) pancake recipe. This is my new standard pancake recipe (esp b/c I always have chia seeds, flax seeds, oats, and wheat flour on hand).

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